Several applications that involve the thermal processing of substrates such as semiconductor wafers and other materials involve the process steps of rapidly heating and cooling a substrate. Examples of such processing include rapid thermal processing (RTP), physical vapor deposition (PVD) processing, and the like, which are used for a number of semiconductor fabrication processes.
During semiconductor fabrication processing, heat energy from lamps is radiated into the process chamber and onto a semiconductor substrate in the processing chamber. In this manner, the substrate is heated to a required processing temperature. Typically, the use of conventional lamps (tungsten-halogen, mercury vapor, arc discharge) or electrical heating elements has been the dominant approach to delivering energy to the substrate for dopant annealing, film deposition, or film modification. These processes are often thermally based and typically require high process temperatures ranging from 200 C to 1600 C, which can result in significant thermal budget issues that adversely affect device performance.
In addition, the use of conventional lamps has associated high maintenance costs with respect to operating lifetime, material and energy usage. Conventional lamps emit radiation over a broad spectrum of wavelengths which can be detrimental to some instrumentation and/or result in an unintended response in the target substrate/film from the undesired wavelengths.
Accordingly, the inventors have provided an improved heat source apparatus for use in semiconductor processing systems.